and I know things now, many valuable things

[stagemanagers]

[You remember dying. Maybe the memory is clear and bright and your body still aches from the cause. Maybe it was fast enough that you didn't feel it and don't remember what you went through. But no matter how you went out you're still trapped here.

When you open your eyes it might take you a minute to recognize your surroundings. It's your dressing room, that much is certain, but nothing is where you remember it. It's like everything has been picked up and moved to the other side of the room. The entire room has been perfectly mirrored from what it used to be and, upon leaving, it seems the rest of the opera house is just the same. If you remember one room being in the east wing, it's now in the west. If it was in the west, it's now in the east.

Welcome back to the Opera House, friends, you're not out of the woods yet.]





[ooc: Welcome to deadland, darlings! It's a perfectly mirrored version of the Opera House and each week, as new people die after new floors have been revealed, the stairwell doors will unlock and allow you to reach them. For example, week 3 victims will unlock floor 2 and so on and so forth. Also, all dead characters will wake up at their actual canon point.

Have fun because we have some fun things planned for you.]

Comments

week 1

[stagemanagers]

[welcome, D-ne and Jean Valjean.]

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[D-ne wakes up screaming. That's strange, because she wasn't screaming when she died; it was impossible to be, with all the blood in her mouth. But then, within a few seconds, she understands strange is par for the course for her.

The perfect "imposter."
I am not the traitor!
As I thought, the Fox was you.
The title is... The "Bookmark of Demise."
In other words... No matter how much we try, we wouldn't be able to solve it?
- Let's try it one more time.

Screaming, and clutching her head. She can't understand. She can't understand anything. She can't understand why she's even here...!

What the hell was the point of any of that?! Even if she won, would it have done anything?! How many times has she played out this role, killing someone who-

...

D-ne stays there for a long time. Trying to make sense of everything, and dwelling on the memories of her past...and of the trial. The people she met here. The reeling revelation of just how long it's been since she really interacted with anyone outside the club. It's far too much for her to take in. It's something that she's been destined to never understand.

At some point, though, what she does understand is that she can't stay there forever. There's something she has to do, if her intuition is right. It seems like, in this kind of story...

With each step, she trembles. She feels a sharp cold pain. Like the razor's back, going in and out and in and out of her body. Still, she pushes herself out of the dressing room, down the hall- the wrong one, at first, why everything is backwards she can't comprehend but she supposes it's fitting- and to the dining room.

Her destination is the place she killed Valjean, his makeshift prayer site. With any luck, he'll already be there. If not, she'll wait until he arrives. If he never does... Then she'll wait forever.]

[breakingbread]

[Valjean, too, woke up alone.

He spent a moment sitting on the edge of his bed, breathing hard and checking himself for injuries. His chest is fine, his face and neck are fine, there's not so much as a speck of blood on his clothes. It's as if none of it ever happened. Were the memory of the razor plunging into him not so vivid, he might be able to convince himself it was just a dream. But he knows better. He was the one to finally end up dead in this place. He had feared finding someone else dead more than he'd thought it could happen to him, but if it had to be someone, this seems right. He was the eldest of all of them, after all.

To be frank, this isn't what he expected to happen after death. Wandering around the strangely mirrored Opera House, he finds everything more or less as it was, except that he's alone. No Heaven, no Hell - just a reflection of their former prison. He can't imagine why, but there must be a reason. It's almost a comforting thought. Perhaps there is still something he can do. Maybe he's some sort of spirit now, and can intercede.

He remembers more home now. The revolution. Meeting Javert again, still with the first face. Cosette's wedding. That brings him a great deal of comfort; she doesn't need him any longer. She's safe at home whether he returns or not. In fact, he had left her on his own already. It was anticipation of arrest that drove him, but strangely, he can't recall Javert ever coming for him. Instead, he remembers growing ill.

He doesn't quite remember dying there, but he knows it was coming. He had accepted it. And having accepted death once, he can do so again.

Valjean isn't at the altar when D-ne finally comes looking. In fact, the altar doesn't seem to exist here. That was disappointing to find, but he doesn't need one to pray. He did pray for a while at first - an entirely reasonable reaction to being dead and here - but now he's in the kitchen, apparently having moved on to making himself some food. There didn't seem to be much else to do, and sticking to routine is easiest.]

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[The altar should be there. The candle sticks, the cross. It should have been there...with a puddle of blood, and two unsettling trails. D-ne finds the fact that it isn't unsettling, like something's crawling beneath her skin. She stares where it should be, as if it'll will it back into existence, to no avail.

Eventually, it's only natural that she smells something coming from the kitchen. There...should only be one other person there, so it only stands to reason, naturally, that the one making it should be...

She's never had to face a person she's killed outside of B-ko. Though she walked here of her own power, it's terrifying. Though the fear pushes on her, she forces herself to move her weighted feet. She stands in the kitchen doorway, seeing Valjean at work, and it's suddenly so much like the first time she laid eyes on the kind man that it steals her breath.]

..........

[She opens her mouth and nothing comes out but a small scratch. So struck she can't do anything but stare.]

[breakingbread]

[The silence here has been all-encompassing. Valjean hasn't even bothered talking aloud to himself; perhaps had it continued for weeks, he would have, but he is comfortable enough with the quiet. It's easy to notice when it's broken, and he turns.]

...D-ne.

[He's a little surprised. He does remember the Balladeer talking about killers getting executed, if they were caught. It's only that he'd thought she might actually escape - she never would have stood a chance in a real fight between them, after all, and people would likely think he had fought.

Maybe it was foolish to have acted as he did, but what's done is done. He doesn't regret it.]

I'm...sorry to see you here, whatever this is. [And he really is. He wouldn't have been any less dead if she went home, at least someone would have benefited.]

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[The moment Valjean turns to look at her, D-ne flinches back, though not consciously. A man his height, in his clothes, lumbers towards her in shadow, reaches out a hand...

It was not Jean Valjean. It was never him. She knew that, and yet she reached back, to her own detriment. It's not like anything could have saved her at that moment, she was doomed the first time her razor cut his skin, but-

Still. This kind, sweet man has been tarnished in her mind, and she hates herself more for that. D-ne's jaw clenches. Teeth push against teeth until her roots groan, and against everything in her body, she walks into the kitchen.

She regrets everything.]

V- Valjean- ...san, I- I-I'm so--

[There's nothing she can say. (What did she say to B-ko, the first time...?) All D-ne can do is bow her head, very low, hands grasped at her chest and eyes glued shut.]

I'm so...! So sorry...! I'm so sorry for what I did...!

week 2

[stagemanagers]

[welcome, Hime and Gabe]

[rockthistown]

[Hime wakes up groaning and rubbing her aching head. She rubs her eyes as words and images run through her mind. Help. Heather. Dummy? Something swooping at her and a cracking sound. Harmonia. Fairies. Their song. Trapped. Freed. Dragon? Everything is backwards in here. Her chicken is gone.

She needs to see what's going on.

And so she swings the door open, runs in the direction that would normally lead down the hall to try and check on the others, and makes the painful discovery that everything outside her room is mirrored, too. By which I mean you may be looking down the dressing room hallway and find the little blue-haired kid running straight into the wall. She falls down and whines.]

Oww... What's the big idea?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[The last week... There hasn't been much to do, here. Valjean isn't mad at her, for some reason, but it has only been the two of them and that's bound to be more than a little awkward after awhile...and D-ne has a lot to think about. The point is, she's gotten used to this, this quiet, solitary feeling. She's content to slip into the shadows and Valjean isn't a loud man, so between the two of them, it's probable she could hear a pin drop in this mirror Opera House.

A pin, or a girl's scream.

It's a familiar voice. Even if it wasn't, it would draw D-ne from where she is, sitting quietly in the lobby with a clipboard, to the dressing room hallway. Familiar but not enough to immediately place, familiar but unfamiliar enough that she can instantly think it can't be, it can't possibly be, of all people, not--

There's a whining little princess, sitting before her. D-ne can't breathe.]

H- Hime...-san...

[rockthistown]

[A familiar voice! Hime rubs her head and pulls herself back up to her feet.]

What's going on? Where's Heather? Goodman-san said she was in trouble, and I went upstairs and thought I saw her, but...

[And then she realizes who that voice belonged to. Slowly, Hime turns around, eyes wide and hands clasped close to her heart.]

D-ne?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

Goodman-san...? [Natalie is her instant thought, what happened to Natalie? And Heather too-]

I- H-Hime-san, you shouldn't be here.

[rockthistown]

Not Natalie, the guy one. He said there was trouble, and I ran up the stairs and I thought I saw Heather, but as soon as I grabbed it, I saw it was fake and... [She holds her head.] I don't know what happened! Why is everything backwards? Why am I seeing dead people? I want to go home!

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

The other... [She swallows. The one who she thought was related to Natalie but didn't ask about. Why...were there so many things she didn't ask about...?]

...Hime-san. No one's showed up here since...since I awoke. It's just been me, and Valjean-san. No one...but you.

[rockthistown]

[Hime gasps sharply. She shrinks into herself, shaking her head.]

So-- so this isn't the same Opera House? That's why everything's backwards? And it's just you, so I'm...?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[D-ne has always been a rather blunt girl. She just dresses it up with a smile. Right now, she can't manage that embellishment, however.]

Dead. You...must have died.

[rockthistown]

[Hime can't do anything for a few seconds but gasp and sniffle, shaking her head numbly.

Then she runs forward and clings onto D-ne, wailing.]

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[Probably, anyone would be better to have here than D-ne. But, that would mean that anyone is dead too, and Hime wouldn't want that. So D-ne will have to do.

She stands frozen, registering Hime's grasp. She is being hugged. It's not for her own comfort, but because Hime needs it. She needs someone to...

A long moment later, her hands find Hime's back, and she returns the hug.]

...I'm sorry. [She sounds numb.]

[rockthistown]

[cries on] I-- I made a cake for the deadline of the motive so we could have a party for nobody dying and I kept your creepy book when I got it out of the booth and I tried to read it but I don't want to summon demons to try and kill me and I don't know why the bookmark was on that, and, and... D-neeeeeeee!

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[Wow okay there's a lot to dissect from that what the fuck uh-]

Wait- Hime-san slow down, you said you got what?!

[rockthistown]

Your book? It had your name in it. It was in my room, but now all my stuff is gone.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[D-ne goes cold. Her grip on Hime actually tightens.]

A...black book...and a cat bookmark?

[rockthistown]

Uh-huh. I didn't do any of the things in it, though, it was way too creepy! [She looks up at D-ne, worry starting to set.] What's wrong?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[She places one hand on the back of Hime's head, cupping it and for a moment venturing a look at the other girl...and then she breaks away and shuts her eyes tight.]

I'm so sorry, it- you're dead because of me. That book i-is cursed.

[rockthistown]

What? [Hime blinks twice.] Even if you don't do what it tells you to?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

That's how the Bookmark of Demise works. You get instructions...and have to complete what it says to do, or you die. Even touching it, Hime-s-san...

[She pulls Hime so she's right in her chest.]